'The Right to the City' and the Problem of Tehran
'The Right to the City' and the Problem of Tehran Published in AMPS Proceedings Series 24.2 (chapter 23, p. 233-243) I presented this piece as part of the panel: Political Economy and the City , in the ‘Cities in a Changing World: Questions of Culture, Climate and Design’ conference, jointly hosted by AMPS and City Tech , City University of New York, 16-18 June 2021. Synopsis ‘The right to the city is like a cry and a demand’, wrote Henri Lefebvre in his 1968 book Le droit à la ville . In the noted urban scholar Peter Marcuse’s words, Lefebvre’s right is ‘a cry out of necessity and a demand for something more’. Despite rather astonishing efforts of former IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) Commander turned mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, to portray a deceptive picture of Tehran on a global stage – either by inviting world-renowned urban thinkers such as Setha Low, David Harvey and Saskia Sassen, or by being invited as a key-note speaker by world-renowned institution